Old Music at Live Earth

Don Surber sheds some light on why the Live Earth concerts last weekend were not nearly as successful (or watched on TV) as organizers had hoped:

Andy Williams didn’t play at Woodstock. He was 41 that summer.

Ray Charles, then 38, wasn’t invited either.

And at age 52, Dean Martin certainly wasn’t.

So what were and John Bon Jovi at 45, Madonna at 48, and Pink Floyd’s David Jon Gilmour, 61, doing headlining a rock concert? None of them have had a hit within a decade of the “Live Earth” concert. Williams, Charles and Martin each had released his signature recording within a few years of Woodstock.

In fact, Pink Floyd’s hit — “The Wall” — is as contemporary today as “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” was in 1969.

One reason “Live Earth” was dead last in the TV ratings is the music was irrelevant to the target audience. In fact, music itself is rather irrelevant. what with Video games and You Tube getting more action. There is a reason MTV shows so few videos: Nobody watches them.

The other reason is that Woodstock was not organized by Hubert Humphrey, the immediate past vice president of the United States at the time.

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